Getting Over Mr. Right (3 page)

On the first anniversary of our meeting, Michael took me out to dinner at J. Sheekey, the famous fish restaurant in Covent Garden. He ordered a bottle of champagne. Not just the house stuff, either; it was vintage, because there was more to celebrate than just our twelve months of being together. That day Michael told me that he had been made a partner at Wellington Burke, the accountancy firm where he worked. This was big news, he said. Really big news. It was the career jump he had been working toward since he’d first learned to add and subtract. It meant much more responsibility, he explained. And more money. It meant that he could afford to upgrade his two-bedroom flat in Stockwell for something far more befitting his new status.

I was thrilled. Something more befitting his new status! I immediately imagined the tall Victorian house on the edge of Wandsworth Common where we would raise our beautiful children. I saw myself in the kitchen with professional standard fixtures and fittings, making elaborate birthday cakes for the golden-haired twins.

When Michael warned me he would have to work extra hard now, I told him I would be there to make life easier for him. Michael’s promotion to partner made the fact that I had
recently been refused a pay raise somewhat easier to handle. How much longer would I have to keep my crappy job anyhow, now that Michael was starting to think about our first marital home?

Except that he wasn’t.

A couple of months later Michael sold his flat in Stockwell and bought a bigger flat in a chichi new development by the riverside in Battersea. He was thrilled with the built-in coffee machine and the integrated sound system. I stood on the balcony that would be incredibly impractical and dangerous for a toddler and bit my lip. There was nothing about the flat that said
family home
. But I chose not to say anything. I was comforted by an article I’d read only recently, which said that men often have a final fling before settling down, and that final fling could take the shape of an unsuitable apartment with an integrated entertainment system rather than shagging someone at the office. The magazine writer’s advice was to let him get on with it. Be understanding.

“It’s a great flat,” I said. “It’ll be very easy to sell on.”

“Sell on?” said Michael. “What are you talking about? I’ve only just moved in.”

“Yes, but eventually …”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this view,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist.

I decided that it was best to cut short the resale conversation and help Michael “christen” his new bedroom.

Looking back, I can see that the riverside flat was the first red flag, but I soon rationalized the significance of it away. Michael had never really had money before. It was understandable that he wanted to spend his hard-earned cash on a few of the things he had lusted after as a student and twenty-something. As time
went on, however, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that Michael was ticking the boxes on a very different list from mine.

A few months after the new apartment came the new car. A two-seater sports-model BMW. Red paint, soft top, and definitely no room for a baby seat. He also bought a set of golf clubs and a fancy mountain bike. Then, on the advice of his new temporary secretary—an Essex blonde ten years my junior—he booked a personal-shopping session at Harvey Nics and his wardrobe went from “geek” to “chic” in the space of an afternoon. He even changed his hairstyle.

“Why didn’t you make me get rid of those terrible jeans?” he asked me. “I looked like Simon Cowell.”

“I thought you liked looking like that,” I said. “And, anyway, you know I would love you whatever you wore.”

I didn’t tell him that I had hated those bloody jeans but had resisted the urge to forcibly update his wardrobe because I had read in another women’s magazine article that you should never try to change a man’s appearance until you had a ring on your finger. Otherwise you would just be giving him the makeover he needed to upgrade to a better girlfriend. I wanted Michael in those awful high-waisted trousers because I didn’t want any other woman to notice the prince I saw beneath the horrible turtleneck sweaters and the poo-brown suede blouson. While I still had no engagement ring, his Iranian-president style suited me just fine.

“Well, it’s all going to the charity shop,” said Michael as he flicked through a copy of
GQ
(to which he’d just taken out a subscription). “I’ll drop it off on my way to the gym.”

The gym?

New flat, sports car, fancy clothes, and the gym. The four self-improvements of the Apocalypse.

Michael’s personal growth was now in stark contrast with the lack of forward motion in our relationship. I couldn’t help comparing our time line with that of Becky and her man, Henry. Becky had met Henry just a couple of weeks before I met Michael. Eighteen months on, she had moved into Henry’s flat. I still lived a forty-minute bus ride away from Michael. Farther away, in fact, than when he had his flat in Stockwell.

On the second anniversary of their first meeting, Henry took Becky to Paris and proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower. He’d had the ring made specially. A diamond solitaire on a band engraved with the words
FOREVER YOURS
. Meanwhile, Michael took me to the Thai restaurant just along the river from his bachelor pad and spent the entire evening checking his BlackBerry for news of some important assignment. So much for a celebration. It turned out he hadn’t actually remembered it was our anniversary. We were only at the restaurant because he hadn’t had time to fill the fridge. He looked very surprised when I pulled out my anniversary card.

“I’ve also made a cake,” I said. Inside the Marks & Spencer’s carrier bag beneath the table was a chocolate sponge with thick butter icing.

“Ashleigh,” said Michael, “you know I’m trying to diet.” He was determined he would have a six-pack for the summer.

“But two years …”

“Is it really two years?” he said.

I couldn’t help but notice the expression that crossed his face, albeit briefly. That expression said “two years” with a sense of horror rather than wonder. I would never forget it, despite the big smile that Michael plastered on right away.

“In that case I suppose I’ll have a little bit of that cake you brought. Just for you.”

We missed Becky and Henry’s engagement party to go to Michael’s company’s Christmas party, which took place in a marquee specially erected for the party season in the middle of the City. Michael, who looked his best ever in a bespoke tuxedo (oh, yes, he was buying bespoke now), swanned around that tent like master of the universe. He left me talking to some of the dullest people on earth while he schmoozed senior partners and important clients. He spent a lot of time talking to one woman in particular. She had big hair and an even bigger chest, which was barely contained by her bright red dress. She did a lot of giggling and hair flicking. I couldn’t imagine what she found so amusing about my man.

“She can’t be an accountant,” I said to Helen, my old university friend, who was about to leave Michael’s firm to give birth to her first baby (with Kevin, the chap who bought her the crotchless panties for her thirtieth).

“Oh, no,” said Helen. “You’re right. She’s not. She’s an interior designer. She’s been redoing the reception areas. I think she’s from Brazil.”

When Michael came back to my side ten minutes later, I told him that I wasn’t feeling too good and wanted to go home.

“Shall I get you a car on the company account?” he said. He didn’t offer to come with me. Seeing the woman in the red dress circling menacingly, I told him that I suddenly felt better and stayed to the bitter end.

When Michael took to the dance floor for “Dancing Queen”—a song I hate—I followed him like a shadow. I felt as though I was dancing for my life.

Cut to: four months after that terrible Christmas party.

It was an ordinary Wednesday morning in the office. Back then I was working for a small advertising company called Maximal Media. It sounds more exciting than it was. I bet you’re thinking innovative campaigns for mobile phones and sugar-free energy drinks that go well with vodka. In reality, we had a nice line providing services for the manufacturers of such exciting products as ironing-board covers and easy-clean juicers. The sort of thing you see advertised in the back of the
Sunday Express
magazine.

I’d been with the company pretty much since I left college, back when I thought that advertising was a glamorous career worth pursuing. I had jumped at the chance of a temp admin job that consisted largely of fetching coffee. I worked my way up from that job to the position of account manager with responsibility for just about everything regarding the clients I was given. And over the years I had been given some corking clients. Remember those infomercials in which an aging soap actress demonstrates the ease of using a stair lift? That’s some of my best work. I seemed to get assigned a lot of the golden-ager products.

In fact that morning I should have been working on a presentation for the clients from Effortless Bathing, whose product was not, alas, a swanky swimming pool but a walk-in bath for the elderly and infirm. You know the kind of thing. It looks
like an ordinary bath but it has a little door in the side so that you don’t have to clamber over and risk a fall. Instead you step in, sit down, turn on the taps and die of hypothermia while you wait for it to fill. It was a very boring product, but my boss, Barry, had promised the people from the step-in-bath company all sorts of excitement and sexy innovation in their push for sales-figure glory. Tasked with turning those promises into advertising gold, I had so far spent the best part of two hours doodling hearts on my notepad.

As soon as I was sure Barry had left the office for a “business lunch,” I risked logging on to my networking accounts. Facebook first. And that was when it happened.

The first thing I noticed was that Michael’s Facebook status, which he hadn’t updated in months (how could he find the time now he was a partner at Wellington Burke?), was showing something new. And somewhat cryptic. It said, “Michael Parker is making some tough decisions.”

Tough decisions about what? I wondered. I went through the possibilities. He had mentioned a few weeks earlier that he had been head-hunted by another accountancy company. Was he still thinking of leaving the firm he had been with for so many years to take another job? I thought he’d decided against it. Or perhaps he was being facetious? When he said “tough decisions,” was he talking about the decisions he had to make regarding the new carpet he wanted for his flat? The previous weekend he had gotten into quite a bad mood as he examined various different swatches in search of the elusive carpet that would fit in with the chic, pale ultimate-bachelor furnishing scheme he wanted and yet not show too much dirt.

I was just about to leave a message on his wall saying,
Go for the oatmeal Berber
, when the live news feed on my profile page refreshed itself with some very strange and unwelcome news indeed.

It said, “Michael Parker is no longer listed as ‘in a relationship.’ ”